


Not Your Typical Romance

by Scientia_Fantasia



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Holding Hands, M/M, Pre-Canon, also post-canon, bc theyre cute, ridiculous metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 22:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scientia_Fantasia/pseuds/Scientia_Fantasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt felt like a balloon stretched to its limit. Like a mob pushing against a wall that’s hardly holding up under the force, like…like a cheap biscuit container you’ve peeled the label off and are just waiting for it to blow.</p><p>Newton Geiszler needed a “contents under pressure” warning plastered against his forehead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Your Typical Romance

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not 100% sure on any of this so if I portrayed something wrong then go ahead and correct me. Also do say if you feel I need to tag this with triggers or something like that. Un-beta'd.

“But it’s actually really fascinating that their structure is similar to ours at all, I mean there’s gotta be like a billion possible combinations of organ structures across the Universe, even animals on Earth have some freaky shit going on—“ Newton was talking. Of course Newton was talking, when did he ever stop? “—so the fact that creatures from like another dimension maybe have similar physiology is pretty awesome for me, at least. Though I mean, I’d probably be able to figure them out anyways, I am pretty smart—“ Usually he wound down after Hermann resolutely ignored him for long enough. But something was different this time. “—I’m kind of a fucking genius, so I’d totally be able to. There are some things I still don’t know about though, I mean that’s what I’m here for right, the second I figure everything out is the day I get fired, because then what do they need me for, right? Maybe I should start encoding all my data—“ If Hermann were a more empathetic type of man, he may have realized that something was wrong. But unfortunately, empathy was not Hermann’s strong suit. “I mean, I know you could totally break it, but you wouldn’t, right?” His leg was acting up, “There’s like, some sort of scientists code against that, isn’t there?” And he was very, very, irritated. “Or at least since we’ve been working for so long—“

“NEWTON,” Hermann yelled, whipping around as best he could to face the offending scientist. “Do you _ever_ shut _up_?”

“I was just,” Newton continued, eyes wide, “I thought it was interesting, I mean—“

“You are the most annoying, insolent, inconsiderate, hyperactive joke of a _scientist_ I’ve ever had the misfortune of working with,” Hermann spat, “I can’t fathom why anyone _ever_ thought it was a good idea to even _let you in a lab_.”

“GOD,” shrieked Newton, gloves balling into fists, “You think I don’t _know_ that?!”

Hermann froze, irritation immediately falling to the wayside for, if he were to be honest, fear.

“I do! I know, and I can’t fucking stop, okay?” Newton continued, “I know, you’ve been getting redder and redder for like the past hour and I’m surprised you haven’t just brained me yet I know I’m fucking _annoying_ and useless like 90% of the time and I don’t know why they l-l-let me in here either! I was obviously their last choice wasn’t I! I’m sure they would have rather had a-a-anyone else! I’m annoying and I know you hate me and wish I would sh-shut up and I wish I could too but I guess it’s just going to be one of those days and I’m s-s-s-s-sorry—GOD, this _FUCKING STUTTER_ ,” he screamed, hands slamming against his work table, instruments clattering to the ground.

Hermann’s knuckles had turned white around his cane.

Newton stilled, face red, hands shaking at the edge of his table, attempting to catch his breath.

‘I’m sorry,’ would have been an excellent thing for Hermann to say at that moment. ‘I didn’t realize,’ perhaps. Both thoughts came to the forefront of his mind, hovering around waiting to be spoken, but Hermann wasn’t a person who apologized. He wanted to, for Newton’s sake, but the words didn’t come.

His colleague ended up disposing of his gloves and leaving the lab, not sparing Hermann a second glance.

It was all the physicist could do to swallow his shame, red-faced for no one to see, and go back to his numbers.

 

* * *

 

Newt knew the exact moment that Hermann realized it was gone. He’d walked over to his desk and reached his hand out to his chair to get—nothing.

He tried not to laugh as Hermann looked around briefly, frown deepening.

“Newton,” he said, “Have you seen my coat?”

“Ah, what, that old thing?” Newt began—though he immediately saw in Hermann’s expression that he’d messed up somehow. Did he answer too fast? Wait—did he usually look Hermann in the eye when he was talking to him? He couldn’t remember, all of the sudden—but he tried to recover anyways. “Nah, man, you must have misplaced it. Or, uh, are you sure you even wore it in here?”

Newt knew that Hermann had worn his parka in that day. Hermann seemed to be fairly certain that he’d worn his parka in that day.

And Hermann most definitely suspected that Newt knew.

“Dr. Geiszler,” he said, walking over as menacingly as he could manage, which was actually kind of a lot with an expression like that. “I’ll ask you again. Have you seen my coat?”

Newt stared at him for a moment.

“…nope,” he squeaked, smiling.

Oh, now he was fucked.

“Where is it,” Hermann demanded.

“Ah, come on, it wouldn’t be any fun if—“

“What did you do with it?”

Newt blinked, stilling for a moment. Hermann was…upset. And not normal upset, because normal upset Hermann would have just gone to a higher up to get Newt to give his stuff back. Newt had done it before, like a million times. That was supposed to be the joke. A minor inconvenience, of sorts.

“Hey, come on, it’s fine. I just hid it somewhere. No big deal?”

“It is a big deal, Newton,” Hermann said, his somewhat labored breathing betraying his nearly calm exterior. “I need to know where you hid it. Please.”

“…yeah,” Newt said, “Yeah, okay. It’s not too far. I made sure it’d be safe. Come on,” he continued, getting up and walking toward the hall, leading Hermann out. It was a supplies closet hardly a minute down where he hid it, and when he pulled the coat out it was, as promised, completely fine.

“See?” he said, holding it out.

Hermann snatched it from him with his free hand, bundling it up against his chest.

“Don’t,” said Hermann, “do that.”

“Yeah,” said Newt, feeling a rare pang of actual regret. “Sorry.”

Hermann nodded curtly and walked away.

Newt made sure to add the coat to his mental “off limits” list.

 

* * *

 

He couldn’t figure out where he was at first. Or _who_ he was, or whose hands were on his neck and face and who was calling his name—the one thought that managed to rise out of the fog was, ‘Is the drift like this for everyone?’

He would later decide, quite definitely, that it was not.

The kaiju probably had something to do with it.

When his mind finally found itself again—found _Newt_ —it found Hermann, too, setting him up, asking him questions. He couldn’t figure out what questions, just yet—to be fair, Hermann wasn’t speaking very clearly—but he managed to gesture to his breast pocket, hoping that would provide the answers Hermann was looking for.

The physicist found his recording, and played it back.

Newt’s head had settled in enough by that point that he realized he’d very nearly made a huge mistake.

As it was, it was still a pretty big mistake.

“…and I’d like you to know that it’s all your fault, it really is, you drove me to this,” his own voice said back to them, ”in which case, ha, I also won. Sort of.”

It became somewhat of a mess of noise soon after that, so Hermann switched the device off, wrapping his fingers around it in a vice.

“You,” he said, voice shaking, “complete...IDIOT,” he yelled, arms trembling and face red. “You could have _died_ , you very well could have—with this—did you—did you even know what you were _doing_?!”

“Well, I mean, the equipment—“

“And _this_ ,” Hermann spoke over him, holding up the recording device mere centimeters from Newt’s nose, “Where would this have left me!”

“It was a _joke_. Come on, I knew I was going to be okay—“

“No,” said Hermann. “You didn’t.”

Newt noticed the tears welling up in his friend’s eyes and decided, for once, that is was not a time to argue.

Hermann lay the handle of his cane purposefully against Newt’s chest, with an expression that suggested he would have used much more force if Newt didn’t already look like he was about to fall apart at the seams.

He fixed Newt with a look, jaw set, a tear down one side of his face.

Newt, inexplicably, nodded.

After a moment, Hermann seemed satiated, and placed the recording down on the nearest clear surface.

“I’m going to get the Marshall,” he said, and Newt watched through red-rimmed vision as he walked off.

 

* * *

 

Newt felt like a balloon stretched to its limit. Like a mob pushing against a wall that’s hardly holding up under the force, like…like a cheap biscuit container you’ve peeled the label off and are just waiting for it to blow.

Newton Geiszler needed a “contents under pressure” warning plastered against his forehead.

That’s what Hermann thought regarding the few moments he had seen in Newt’s head, before the hive mind ransacked their headspace and they found information more important than the shape of the other’s psyche. There were, all of the sudden, more important things to do.

There were more important things to do until there weren’t.

When a few celebratory drinks were shared and backs were patted and most importantly, the clock stopped ticking, Hermann spotted tattooed arms gesturing for a crowd of onlookers, and he forced his way through to the center of attention, as Newt recounted their story for the umpteenth time that night.

Hermann attempted to stand slightly within the crowd, but Newt gestured him over and he really couldn’t help but oblige, however grudgingly.

(Not really that grudgingly, his smile betrayed, when Newt got their audience to cheer for him with minimal prompting.)

“If it weren’t for this dude, we’d all be dead right now,” Newt said with a grin, hand coming down perhaps a bit too enthusiastically on Hermann’s back. Well, he’d allow it, for this night at least.

“Oh, you and your dramatics,” Hermann said, rolling his eyes and attempting a scowl.

“A rockstar’s gotta learn to put on a good show!”

Hermann let that one go, as someone around them posed a question and Newt’s attention became otherwise occupied. Hermann allowed them to be the center of attention for a while, even engaging briefly in conversation himself, before shifting next to Newt, arms brushing (had they really been this close the whole time?) and feet moving to point a slightly different direction. Hermann wasn’t sure where he’d picked up the particular movement, but it came to him as “let’s go—“ and judging by Newt’s brief acknowledgement, it was a mutual understanding.

It was a few minutes still before they managed to extract themselves from the celebration, and a time after that before they found a hallway empty enough to talk in.

Hermann wasn’t sure how long it had been when he realized that wrist-holding to traverse through the crowds had turned into fingers brushing had turned into palms pressing, but neither of them mentioned it, and their arms fell back to their sides once they decided they were alone.

“So, what’s up?” Newt said, excitable and recently indulged nature toned down only slightly to show his concern.

“I need to apologize to you,” Hermann said.

Newt frowned, confused.

“For _what_?” he asked, “Saving the fucking _world_?”

Hermann rolled his eyes, exasperation a bit more genuine than the last time.

“For…what I’ve said to you in the past,” he started.

“Oh my god,” Newt of course had to interrupt, “You’re not going to backtrack everything you’ve ever said to me right, because I was planning on doing other stuff tonight and I mean you totally meant a ton of that shit, I know you did.”

“Well, yes,” said Hermann. “You’re certainly annoying, inconsiderate, and often extremely childish—“

“Oh, good, Hermann’s still in there—“

“But anything I said about you being unfit for this job was completely motivated by spite and I could never bring myself to apologize after seeing how it affected you. So, I’m sorry. I’ve always had very high opinions of your work and recently, have had higher opinions of your character as well. And now I realize…I saw what it’s like for you. And I hate that it took that to make me apologize. But here I am.”

Hermann was honestly surprised that Newt had let him speak that long.

“I,” said Newt, blinking a few times. “I’m…I forgive you.”

Hermann nodded.

Newt smiled at him, and when Hermann smiled back, Newt broke into a grin, and his right hand plucked at Hermann’s left until the physicist took pity and grabbed it, fingers sliding into place between Newt’s.

They stood there for a moment, Hermann’s eyes trailing up the lines of Newt’s tattoos, acutely aware of Newt watching him do so.

He remembered, for a moment, what it was like to be Newton Geiszler. Phantom pains of needles that were never on his skin—an ever growing, demanding pressure, squirming in the silence.

When he let the memories go, the pressure was still there. When he glanced up and met a red-rimmed eye, he felt this thoroughly Newt feeling crawl deep down in his chest and settle there.

He gripped Newton’s hand tighter, and smiled.


End file.
